Chile

I thought I had finally recovered from my recent travel troubles but the memory lingers and still makes me feel a little anxious. The fact I am writing about it again is proof enough it continues to plague me. As I have said before, travelling is far from glamorous as depicted in Fergi's music video. Leaving Lima the burden of proof is upon oneself to show that you have all the required legal papers to exit the country while in the US it is to show proof to enter. I don't suppose it helps that I am resident in three countries.
Having complained incessantly about travelling I am now planning our next sortie to Machu Picchu. We have friends visiting us at Christmas and decided it would be fun to go with them. It is embarrassing to admit after over a year of living in Peru we have so far not found time to visit this marvel of the world. When people ask me about it I exclaim over it, condemn the conquistador's for being so brutal and make the right comments about Hiram Bingham without actually confessing I have yet to see it. I also resorted to using a travel agent as my mediocre Spanish and patience over the net with bookings was waning. So the agents rub their hands with glee when they see me about to book for 9 people. I only hope I am not posting more tales of woe about what went wrong...
We have just returned from Santiago de Chile and I am glad to report nothing went wrong at the airport. There was a high chance it would as the airport and city were inundated with bods from abroad for the APEC summit. We live close to the three top hotels in Lima and streets were closed off with riot police and we were stopped a few times in the car. That said they did let me wonder through on foot to my gym class!
Back to Chile was it worth the effort. Yes because we got out of Lima and it's lockdown and the weather was glorious. No because the city was full of city workers demonstrating(don't blame them) and full of uncollected rubbish bags. The Info centre was shut so we had to navigate the city without a map(Cracker has a built in compass but still gets edgy without a map to peruse) Our hotel room was above a bus stop; the constant hissing of doors, screeching of brakes and thrum of engines is not conducive to sleep.
We did make it out to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso where I fell in like with Pablo Neruda's house and bought his Antolgia Total, convinced I am going to improve my Spanish vocab. Any man who can right Ode's to a spoon/artichoke/onions/socks and keep the reader entranced on such mundane subjects has to be worth reading. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/neruda.htm.
It was of notable interest that Gustave Eiffel designed the Mercado Central and Train Station in Santiago. So we were told on our bike tour of the city. I have seen more of Eiffel's designs in Latin America than I did in France. (Like me the man gets around!) In Iquitos (only accesable by plane or boat) there is a rather odd looking iron building in the Main Plaza that he constructed. I say odd as it does not blend with the local architectural style. Turns out Gustave thought he was in Quito not Iquitos perhaps he stopped in Chile and could not find a reliable map!!